The corridor they had walked in from, and which had initially served as their directional aid, was gone, lost even to his enhanced [Sight], when they woke up

Nar was sure it had been there when he’d gone to sleep, which meant that the way back had been shut. Even if they wanted to return, they couldn’t go back to it anymore.

While everyone’s aura bars were still practically full, Kur rushed them onwards, still driven by whatever it was that gave him that sense of urgency. He pushed them hard, just as he had said he would, and they had walked well into the night. However, Kur did not show any signs of wanting to stop just yet.

Tuk and Rel were still chatting away, though they were now gasping for breath in between sentences.

After many, many topics, the current one was discussing the purpose of the giant columns that surrounded them and of the Pressure itself. After Jul, Tuk had recycled that same topic and asked it of everyone to varying rates of interest. By far, Rel was the most excited to talk about it.

If Nar hadn’t been feeling so tired, and needed to debate between breathing and talking, he would’ve joined them as well. As it was, he was perfectly happy to let their whispering fall into the background, and to lose himself in the lights and columns and the occasional random stray thought.

He found himself like that quite often, now. Empty headed, almost in a daze.

It was like his worst fears had come to pass, and there really hadn’t been anything he could’ve done about it.

He was an auramancer now. Instead of aether, he had aura. Instead of magic, he was now armed with a powerful new set of aura skills. Even though he hadn’t tested them out yet in combat, he fully believed they would help him handle any further situation that the Climb threw at him, one way or another.

It wasn’t what he had wanted, but now, all he could really do was keep Climbing and stay alive.

Besides, after everything he had been through, and the fight he had put up against his [Aura] and everything he had learned on that Climb, there was really no blaming himself for what had happened. Forces much beyond his mortal ken and understanding had proven impossible to beat in the end. And the knowledge that he had not let himself, his party, or his dad down, made him feel strangely light. As though a huge weight he had been carrying, even before the Climb, had been removed from him. Taken off of his hands entirely.

“Nar?”

Nar startled and looked down.

“Oh. Hi, Cen.”

The lengos smiled up at him, her eyes looking tiny and heavy.

“Hi,” she said, and a massive yawn gobbled up her follow up words.

Nar yawned too.

“Crystal, I’m sorry!” she said.

“It’s alright,” Nar said, blinking away at his gritty eyes. “So, did you need something?”

“Yes, though now that I’m here, I’m not sure if I actually have the brain for it,” she said.

“Aura, I’m guessing,” Nar said, grinning. “You’ve been talking about it with Mul non-stop.”

“Yeah. But I don’t think he can help me. He did his best, though,” Cen said, smiling at her brother.

Mul, who was a few feet ahead of them, seemed to be doing more stumbling than walking.

Nar scratched the back of his neck. Then he frowned at his hand. He could do it without issues through the aura.

“Not sure how much brain I have myself, but, go ahead. I’ll do my best to try and help you. To be honest, even though I have a lot of it, it doesn’t mean I know more about aura than you do,” he said. “You’re still the expert.”

“Thank you. And that’s not true. You were the one that found where our aura was. Not me!”

“Probably because I used it more, and because since there was more of it, it was more noticeable,” Nar said with a shrug. “I have no doubts you would’ve gotten there. And sooner than you think… Anyways. What do you want to talk about?”

Cen pressed a hand to her chest.

“I’m confused about the different auras.”

Nar nodded. “Right! That is bit confusing for me too.”

“Come on,” Kur suddenly said, from up ahead. “Let’s just get to the next set of pillars, and then we can stop for the night.”

“Oh, thank the Crystal,” Cen mumbled, and the sentiment was murmured throughout the party.

Nar scanned the distance still ahead of them.

“We still have a while, if you want to keep talking? Or we can talk tomorrow, if you’re too tired?”

“Let’s talk now, if that’s okay with you? It will help distract me from my feet,” Cen said, grimacing.

Nar nodded with a slight smile.

“So, yeah, the auras are confusing me. But it’s not the difference between the energy source, the attribute, and the aura in our status that has me stumped,” she said.

At that reminder, Nar threw a quick look at his gray bar.

974. Not bad.

He should probably set up a time to see how much he was going through per hour, to confirm it was still going at the same rate of 0.7 points of aura per hour… Or he could ask Cen, if he really wanted to know. He was sure she was keeping proper track of it.

“So, what is it, then?” he asked Cen.

She had pursed her lips, tapping on her chin as she mulled her next words.

“Well, I guess what I’m confused about is what that gray bar actually means, and what that ball of light inside of us is,” she said.

“Oh… I just thought that they were the same,” Nar confessed. “Though, to be honest, I haven’t really thought about it...”

Cen gave him a startled look. “Of course! You’re still hoping for magic, aren’t you? Even though… I mean, most of the others are too, so that doesn’t mean anything bad!”

“Don’t worry about,” he said. “I’m still hoping for it, but right now, it doesn’t really bother me.”

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Cen looked down at her feet.

“Maybe I shouldn't be talking about this with you.”

“What? Why not?” he asked, frowning.

She sighed. “I don’t know how this stuff works, Nar. Maybe it’s worse if you talk about it, or try to figure it out.”

Nar threw his head back and laughed.

When he noticed Cen frowning at him, he raised a hand in apology. “I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you, or your concern. I really appreciate it,” he said. “It’s just that there’s nothing you or I can do about it right now. Maybe up ahead there will be an even stronger Pressure barrier. We don’t know. We don’t know anything, and I’ve realized that for all my worrying there’s just no point.”

“You’re… Very relaxed about this,” she said, unable to keep the surprise from her tone.

Nar took a deep breath and considered all that was around him.

“I did my best, Cen. I really did… Anyways, you think that the bar and the ball of light are different things? Wouldn’t it make sense that the bar measures the ball?” he said. “Hmmm… But it is an interesting point.”

“Right?” she said, unable to keep her enthusiasm at bay. “Our auras are basically the first real, physical and observable manifestation of our attributes! Sure, [Stamina] and [Constitution] are what they are, but they’re not a ball of light inside us!”

Nar couldn’t help smile at her bright demeanor. They deserved moments like this, where their true selves could shine through the hardships. Even if it was under that insane Pressure.

“I’ve been thinking about it, and I just can’t help thinking that they are related, but different somehow. From the first time I’ve seen the light inside of me, to now, there has been no changes to it. I expected it to get bigger after we used our [Meditation] to refill our aura bar, but it looked the same afterwards,” she explained. “And there was a big difference. That’s what got me thinking that maybe there was something I was missing.”

She looked up at him. “I thought that maybe I just don’t have enough aura to see the difference… But maybe you, with a lot more than me, could maybe see it better?”

Nar checked that the next few dozen steps ahead of him were clear, as they had been from the start, and closed his eyes. With ease, he sunk down to the place where his aura resided.

The hazy ball of gray light looked just the same as it had from that first day he had found it, except now, there was no more scarring across it, or bits of it being ripped off.

He placed his arms around it, interlocking his fingers on the other side of it, and tried to recall if there was any difference.

“Hmmm… I think it looks the same? Size wise. But there are no more… Injuries on it.”

He opened his eyes and found Cen staring at him.

“What?”

She motioned towards the space within his arms. “Is that the size of your aura?”

Nar looked down and saw that he had moved his arms in the real world too.

“Oh. That didn’t happen last time…”

He dropped his arms, feeling self-conscious.

Cen didn’t say anything for a few steps, then looked at him again. “That’s a lot of aura that you have. I think you would have definitely seen a difference.”

Nar nodded slowly, still feeling embarrassed.

“I just can’t help but feel like they’re different things,” Cen said. “And there’s also all that aura we used before we even had the bar… So, what was that, then? How could we use it?”

“Have you tried it again? That thing you were doing, using your aura directly to power your [Aura Projectile]?” Nar asked.

“No. I’m… I’m scared of trying it.”

She raised her hand to her face, and observed the swirling gray protection that kept her alive.

“It’s keeping me safe, for now. All of us. I can’t risk something like that explosion again. I could lose control over it. I could hit someone and cause them to lose control,” she said, and shook her head. “No, I can’t risk that until we’re out of here. But maybe… Maybe that’s what I need to do. Try and pull my aura directly again. I haven’t even tried my new [Aura Projectile 4], you know?”

“I tried my skills,” Nar said. “But I didn't really pay much attention at the bar or the ball of light. The only thing I noticed was that the bar went down and up, when I used my skill.”

“Up?” she asked, frowning.

Nar nodded.

“When I canceled my [Aura Attack], I got about 30 points of aura back. The skill costs 50 points.”

“And the rest?”

Nar shrugged. “It just seemed to disappear into the air.”

Cen sighed. “That’s a whole new set of questions… But it’s getting hard to talk and breath. For now, thanks for talking with me.”

“No worries. I’m sorry I couldn’t help more. Maybe once we're through this orange place, we can check again,” Nar said. “I can use my aura skills, and we can see if we can learn anything from them.”

“You would do that? Isn’t that bad for your… You know, chances of gaining magic?”

Nar chewed on her words for a moment.

It… Is. Isn’t it? But so is dying. Besides…

After months and months of struggle and the dilemma raging through his mind, he was a bit tired of tiptoeing around his aura… He wasn’t giving up on aether, of course. But he was… Worn. And increasingly sick of it.

“You’ve done a lot for us, Cen. And none of us would be here if not for you and your aura,” he told the concerned lengos. “The least I can do is try and help you figure things out. Besides, I am using my aura, and I’ll be using it fully to fight. Best we get something from it, right?”

“I… Thank you,” she said, reaching over to brush his leg. “And I know it will be really helpful.”

Nar nodded and grinned at her. “I said try. I don’t know if I’ll actually be able to help you.”

“I’m sure it will!” Cen said, beaming back at him. “Okay! In the meantime, why don’t you keep an eye on your ball of light? We can’t use [Mediation] here, so we’ll continue to deplete our aura bar as we go. We can see if your ball of light aura becomes smaller or if it stays the same as your aura bar. And I can do the same!”

“Sounds good. Though we should come up with a different name for them. Ball of light aura and bar aura aren’t that great,” he said, rubbing his chin.

“Hmmm… Oh! How about internal aura for the ball and external aura for the bar? You know, because one is inside us, and the other one is outside, on our UIs. Does that make sense?”

“It surprisingly does,” Nar said, stunned. “How did you come up with that so fast?”

“It just made sense. No?”

“I guess… If you’re as smart as you are,” Nar said, smiling.

“Yeah… Wait! What? No!”

Nar smothered his laughter before Kur could give out to him.

“The brains of the party! She does it again!” he said, grinning.

“Please, don’t say that,” Cen said, going a shade darker.

“Come on, guys,” Kur said. “Not too loud. And let’s walk faster. We’re almost there.”

Cen heaved a sigh and Nar smiled at her.

“Come on, we’re almost there. We can do it!”

Cen smiled gratefully at him, and picked up the pace to go rejoin and link arms with her brother, whose footsteps were even heavier and more erratic than before. The brawler was clearly falling asleep.

And watching them, he noticed how Cen’s steps weren’t much different.

It made him grateful for every point of [Stamina] that he had.

About thirty minutes later, they reached the columns.

Kur had been steering them left, towards one of them, and as soon as he decided that they were close enough, though still safely far enough from the blazing orange Pressure silently climbing up the column, he called it a night.

Cen and Mul sat down where they were, breathing hard. Tuk and Rel, who had gone quiet for the last while to conserve their stamina, went down just after them.

That left Gad, who helped Viy down, Jul, Nar and Kur still standing. The latter was panting hard, and frowning even harder at the party and the columns around them, as if stuck between looking for something or wanting to say something.

“Are you okay?” Nar asked him.

“Uh? Oh! Yes. Yes, all good,” Kur said, his eyes somewhat unfocused. “Go on, rest. Rest.”

The party leader motioned for him to sit down, but he kept staring around them and the party itself, with the same in between confusion and frustrated expression.

Nar watched him wander off a few steps, and he caught Gad staring as well. She noticed that he had noticed and she lifted a hand to her chest, and tapped twice. Then she pointed at him and then at the floor.

Nar gave her a discrete thumbs up, and left it in her hands.

There wasn’t much spirit for chatting, and after a quick meal, everyone was soon down and out for the night, except for Kur and Gad, who stayed up for the first watch and talked in hushed whispers.

Nar quickly fell into a dreamless sleep, until something changed.

Heat began to pool at his back.

He looked behind him to see a massive wall of blazing hot orange Pressure. It rose and rose and rose, until it reached the ceiling and dwarfed even the mighty columns around them.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to run.

Where were the others?

No matter what he did, all he could do was look up at the giant wall of death that roared above him, ready to devour him. But he couldn’t move! He screamed the commands within the confines of his brain but not even his eyes obeyed him. He was pinned down by a force beyond him, and soon, the wall took him.

He woke up with a start, breathing hard and feeling his body wet with sweat underneath the aura layer.

Something weighed on his lap and he looked down to find an arm.

What the fuck? He thought, panting.

He followed the arm back to its owner, already knowing what he would find.

Rel shifted in her sleep, a troubled frown forming on her face. She mumbled something. Whimpered.

Nar, without thinking, reached over to pat her head.

Soon, her face relaxed and, holding on to his leg, she drifted back into a restful sleep.

Crystal! She’s burning! He thought, grimacing.

“Oh? What have we here?” a voice said.